


Neighborly Affection

by lillianmmalter



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Babies, Canon Disabled Character, Childbirth, Domestic Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Pining, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-06 23:17:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15896151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lillianmmalter/pseuds/lillianmmalter
Summary: It started by accident. But then one dinner led to another led to a friendship they both value greatly. Daniel just hopes he won't make a hash of it by letting on how deeply he actually cares for Peggy.





	Neighborly Affection

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally supposed to be a short bit of fluff inspired by [this](https://positive-memes.tumblr.com/post/178843785185/wholesome-interaction) post on Tumblr, but then [truth_renowned](https://archiveofourown.org/users/truth_renowned/pseuds/truth_renowned) encouraged me to expand it and it wound up eating my summer. I think it's good? I honestly can't even tell anymore.
> 
> Thanks to truth_renowned, Ellix, and [Paeonia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paeonia/pseuds/Paeonia) for cheerleading me on this. Without you this would still be languishing in my WIP folder, distracting me from writing other things.

Daniel was just pulling the bacalhau out of the oven when he heard a knock at the door. He quickly placed the casserole dish on the stovetop, burning the edge of his thumb in his haste. Muttering curses, he collected his crutch and opened the apartment door.

No one was there.

Even more annoyed now, he cast a glance down the hallway only to see the back of his very pregnant next door neighbor.

“Mrs. Carter?”

She stopped, unmoving for a moment before she turned around with an embarrassed look on her face. She was holding an empty plate, of all things.

“I’m sorry to bother you. It was silly of me.”

“Did you need anything?”

She was a war widow. A gorgeous British brunette who, building rumor had it, fell madly in love with her GI husband enough to abandon everything she knew to join him in the States, only for him to die in the last months of the war. Daniel had heard of plenty of women who were left husbandless and pregnant after the war, but most of them also had families and friends to fall back on. Mrs. Carter seemingly had no one.

“No, it was nothing.”

“Really?”

She hesitated, moving the plate slowly around in her hands like a wheel. “No. Only–”

“Yes?”

“Whatever it is you’re cooking smells absolutely divine.”

She looked appalled at herself after she said it, but tilted her chin up stubbornly anyway.

Daniel laughed, surprised. “You want some of my dinner?”

“I don’t mean to be a bother.”

“It’s no bother,” he insisted. In fact, it was kind of cute. When his older sisters were pregnant, they had tended to demand things from him rather than asking. But then, maybe that’s because he was their younger brother and they were used to bossing him around. Mrs. Carter didn’t have anyone to fetch things for her when she had cravings. Daniel found himself grateful she trusted him enough to ask him for anything.

“Tell you what,” he said. “You come keep me company while I finish it up and you can have half. I was a little worried about eating it all tonight anyway.”

She beamed at him and Daniel’s heart skipped a beat.

“You’re certain? I’d hate to be responsible for eating what’s meant for tomorrow’s lunch.”

“It’s cod,” he said, ignoring the happy twist in his stomach when her face brightened even more. “Fish doesn’t exactly reheat well.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t.”

She waddled back over to his doorway and through into his kitchen. Daniel knew he wasn’t supposed to find a woman heavily pregnant with another man’s child to be so charming, but he couldn’t help himself. He wanted to kiss her and protect her and give her everything she might need to ease her burden. He pushed those ridiculous fantasies aside and settled for hoping his bacalhau was the best he’d ever made.

Daniel closed the door and maneuvered himself back in front of the oven. He tried not to blush at Mrs. Carter’s attention.

“It’s been ages since I’ve had cod,” she said. “What have you cooked it with? Are those olives?”

“Yeah, I was just about to add them to the top. It’s a Portuguese dish. I hope that’s okay.”

She smiled. “I’ve never had Portuguese food before. And those are potatoes! It’ll be like a more adventurous form of fish and chips! No wonder I wanted some so badly.”

Daniel laughed. “I hadn’t ever thought of it that way.”

“You probably wouldn’t have had any reason to.”

“No, I guess not. You probably haven’t had fish and chips since leaving England.”

“Longer, really. I hadn’t had it in ages even before I left.”

“Well, glad I could provide. Is parsley okay?”

“I love parsley.”

Daniel added it and the olives, then slid the casserole back into the oven.

“Just a couple more minutes and it’ll be done,” he said. “Would you like a seat?”

Mrs. Carter shot him that embarrassed smile again. “Thank you, but I’m afraid I might not be able to get back up again.”

“You could have dinner here.”

Daniel wanted to punch himself in the face. It was one thing to be neighborly, but it was quite another to ask a recently widowed woman to eat dinner with him. He’d practically asked her on a date!

“Thank you, but I wouldn’t want to impose any more than I already have.”

Daniel shrugged and smiled. “It’s no problem, really.” If he happened to be paying more attention to putting the dirty prep dishes in the sink than her likely negative reaction, no one could blame him.

“All right then,” she said after a short pause. “It would be nice to have some company.”

Daniel barely held himself back from whipping around to stare at her in shock. He heard a chair creak as she sat down, and an almost inaudible sigh of relief.

“Can’t be long now,” Daniel said, somewhat awkwardly, as he turned back around. He hoped the sentence was vague enough that she could interpret it as being about the food if she didn’t want to talk about herself.

Mrs. Carter was rubbing her belly and looking at him with an expression he almost could have called fond if they knew each other better. It was all Daniel could do not to fantasize that it was his baby she was carrying, that she was his wife and not his neighbor he’d spoken to a handful of times and fetched the mail for once.

“Two or three weeks, according to the doctor. Just in time for Christmas. Or were you talking about the fish?”

Daniel chuckled and looked away, caught.

“I was gonna leave that up to you.”

“Thank you for not assuming. Mrs. Keller seems to think the baby is all I could possibly want to talk about. She keeps offering me birthing advice that sounds positively medieval.”

Mrs. Keller lived on the third floor and was the proud grandmother of more than twenty grandchildren and half a dozen great-grandchildren. Daniel knew more about them than his own nieces and nephews.

“I think it’s more likely that your baby is all she wants to talk about. She’s cornered me about it at least twice the past month.”

“Please tell me you’re joking,” Mrs. Carter said. She looked pale at the prospect of being the subject of gossip.

“Sorry. That woman loves babies more than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Oh Lord.”

“It’s okay. I think she’s just excited there’s gonna be a new baby in the building that she can fawn over.”

“And I suppose my lack of a husband has never come up?”

Daniel shrugged. “It’s not your fault he died in the war. I think it’s admirable the way you’ve kept going regardless.”

She shot him a penetrating look he wasn’t certain how to decipher. It almost felt like she was looking into his soul.

“Right,” she said after a long pause.

Daniel turned to check on the bacalhau. It was ready, so he pulled it out of the oven and set it on the stove. He handed Mrs. Carter the trivet that hung on the wall.

“Could you set that in the middle of the table, please?”

She took it, making motions as though about to get up and help him. He waved her back down, handing her another plate and two forks instead.

It was awkward making the necessary quarter turns with his prosthetic to transfer the casserole dish from the stovetop to the table without his crutch, but he managed without burning either himself or Mrs. Carter or slipping and falling on the linoleum.

“All the things the army taught me, they never had anything to say about the dangers of cooking,” he quipped as he sat down.

“You were in Europe, right?”

“France and Belgium mostly.” He gestured down at his leg. “That’s where I got this.”

“That’s rough luck.”

He shrugged, purposely not thinking about it. “Coulda been worse.”

She looked sad, and Daniel cursed himself for a fool.

“Yes, it could have been,” she said, then rallied her spirits. “I’m glad for your sake it wasn’t.”

Daniel handed her the serving spoon, grateful he at least had enough class not to shove it at her. “Here, I’ll let you serve yourself first.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t worry if you don’t like it. I’ve got older sisters; I know how fickle pregnant bellies can be.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Mrs. Carter said with a smile.

And apparently it was. She ate all of her serving and half of what Daniel purposefully left in the dish just in case.

As they ate, they talked of their families: Daniel’s older sisters and their broods up in Rhode Island, his dad and younger sister here in New York. He left his older brother, Samuel, out of the conversation until Mrs. Carter started telling stories of the trouble she and her own brother, Michael, used to get up to as children.

Daniel hadn’t laughed so hard in years.

“And then he looked up, innocent as can be, and said, ‘Is this where I get the candy floss from, sir?’”

“Still wearing the wig?”

“Still wearing that awful wig and our mum’s dress!”

Daniel clutched at his ribs and wheezed.

Mrs. Carter heaved a sigh as their laughter died down. “Thank you again for dinner,” she said.

“It was no problem. Best dinner I’ve had in a while,” Daniel said.

“Yes, it was,” Mrs. Carter said, surprise coloring her voice. “And not just because I haven’t had cod in forever.”

“I’m glad you liked it. You ate enough of it.”

She looked horrified for a moment before she caught his teasing smirk, then she adopted an arch look. “I’ll have you know, I’m eating for two.”

“I’d be flattered even if you weren’t.”

She didn’t seem to know how to respond to that, and Daniel realized he’d been flirting. He started to gather the dishes to take to the sink.

“Oh, I’ll do that,” Mrs. Carter said, hauling herself to her feet belly first, using both the table and the back of her chair for leverage.

“What?”

“You cooked for me. It’s the least I can do to do the washing up.”

“You’re my guest,” Daniel said, blinking at her dumbly.

“And I all but invited myself over.”

Daniel knew he should object again, but she had a stubborn tilt to her head that told him he would just be wasting his energy.

“O-kay,” he agreed, slowly. Her smile lit up the room. “But you really don’t have to.”

“I have to show you I have some good manners. My mother would be appalled otherwise.”

Mrs. Carter gathered the rest of the dirty dishes and took them to the sink.

“My dad was the stickler for manners in my house, growing up,” Daniel said, staying seated. “He did everything he could to turn me into a gentleman.”

His dad would like her, Daniel thought. He liked smart women with foreign accents. He thought they were elegant. Mrs. Carter certainly fit that description, even as she moved through Daniel’s kitchen with all the earthly grace of an elephant. It was charming in a way Daniel realized could quickly become dangerous if he didn’t keep himself in check. He had no business falling in love with this woman.

“Yes, I’ve seen your aborted attempts to open the front door for some of our neighbors,” Mrs. Carter said.

“I was used to rushing ahead to do that sort of thing before this happened,” he said, gesturing at his false leg and forcing his bitterness at his situation back down his throat. “It’s a little hard to do now.”

“No one doubts your good intentions, Mr. Sousa.”

“As long as they don’t start treating me like some sort of charity case.”

“I can’t say anything for anyone else, but you needn’t worry about that from me. I know firsthand some of what you went through over there, even if I don’t know the specifics. That part of Europe was a dangerous part of the world to be in for far too long.”

“I appreciate that.”

He noticed Mrs. Carter was no longer splashing about in the dishwater, but was instead gripping the edge of the sink.

“Mrs. Carter?”

“I’m fine,” she said. Her voice was strained and she was breathing very carefully. Daniel panicked.

“It’s not the baby, is it?”

“No. Just. Mm. False contractions, I think.”

“False contractions?” Those were a thing people had to worry about?

“I’m sorry, Mr. Sousa. They don’t seem to be going away like they normally do. I think I should go lie down at home.”

Daniel lurched to his feet. Was she having the baby?

“Should I call anybody? A doctor, or–”

“No, thank you,” she said, the lines of pain on her face smoothing out. “It’s something of a waiting game at this point. Even if I were having the baby tonight, it’s too early to call anyone. But I don’t think I am.”

“If you’re sure–”

“I am.” She smiled at him. It was a little more strained than it had been at any other time that night, but Daniel supposed that only made sense. “Thank you again for dinner.”

“It was no problem.”

He opened the apartment door for her and she waddled out, a touch slower than she had come in.

“Listen. Bang on the wall if it turns out to be the real deal, okay? I might not be able to run for the phone downstairs, but I can probably still get there quicker than you could doubled over in pain.”

Mrs. Carter quirked an eyebrow at him.

“I just. You know what I mean,” he said, blushing.

“I’ll keep it in mind. Thank you, Mr. Sousa.”

And with that, she waddled back down the hall and into her own apartment. Daniel cursed quietly as he closed his door. That was a less than ideal end to what had been an unexpectedly fantastic dinner.

The dishes were only half done, and the table hadn’t been wiped clean. Daniel hung the trivet back on the wall above the stove, then started wiping down the table. It had been nice sharing dinner with someone new again. He ate weekly dinners on Saturdays with his dad, and occasionally caught up with his younger sister, Edith, and her roommate, but since the war, his social circle had narrowed to just them.

He used to have friends. He used to go out more, socialize more. Now, if he wasn’t going over to his dad’s house for dinner, he was working late at the office, taking over shifts from other agents who had girlfriends and wives and families. Things Daniel had once wanted with all his heart.

Things Daniel still wanted, if he was honest with himself. He’d never get any of them carrying on as he had been. Mrs. Carter notwithstanding, Daniel was never going to meet women sitting at home or staying late at work. He wouldn’t make any new friends doing that either. Although, he thought, his heart racing at the mere notion against all logic to the contrary, he might have just made a new friend in Mrs. Carter.

He would like having her as a friend. She was too recently widowed for him to even think of hoping for more from her in reality, his foolish fantasies to the contrary aside, but she had exactly the sort of personality he used to look for in co-conspirators back in school. He hadn’t laughed like that in ages, and couldn’t wait to do so again. As long as he could keep his attraction to her under wraps, keep himself from flirting with her, maybe he could turn their friendly acquaintance into something longer lasting. The question was how.

Daniel turned around to finish the rest of the dishes and stopped in his tracks.

She’d left her plate.

Daniel smiled. It wasn’t much, but he could use returning it as an excuse to talk to Mrs. Carter again, possibly even to invite her to dinner another night. It had been awfully nice sharing his meal with her tonight.

His mind whirled with menu ideas as he finished the dishes.

 

~***~

 

“It was the parsley,” Mrs. Carter greeted him by the mailboxes two days later. She was still visibly pregnant, so clearly she hadn’t actually gone into labor the other night.

“What?”

“The false contractions. According to Mrs. Keller, they can be set off by parsley.”

Daniel’s stomach dropped. “Oh god. Are you okay?” He gripped the handle of his crutch to stop himself from reaching out to her.

“I’m fine. It wasn’t the first time it’s happened. It wasn’t real labor, just a sort of practice run. Though that one felt more real than the ones before. Probably because I’m closer to it actually being real.”

“I’d still hate to be the reason you had the baby early.”

“I’m fine, Mr. Sousa. Really.”

He hated that she called him that. It was probably too soon to ask her to call him Daniel; he didn’t want to presume an intimacy that wasn’t actually there, even if they were friendlier now than they were before they had dinner together. Much as he hated the formality, he’d follow her lead.

“I’m glad to hear it,” he said, opening his mailbox to retrieve the contents. On top was a flyer for one of the local department stores declaring their home goods Christmas sale. Which reminded him, “By the way, you left your plate over at my place.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah, it was still in the sink after you left.”

“Oh! I’m so sorry. I–”

“Don’t worry about it. You left in kind of a rush for a good reason. Just thought I’d let you know in case you were missing it.” He paused, doubting himself for a moment, then went ahead anyway. “Also, if you want, I could try to make up for the parsley bungle. Give the plate back to you after another dinner?”

She hesitated, looking like she was trying to find a polite way to turn him down.

“It’s just, it was nice having a meal with a friend, you know?” he blurted out. “Things are different since the war.”

She paused again, her eyes going sad. “Yes, things are different now.”

Daniel was an idiot. He should just cut his losses and leave now.

“Dinner with a friend sounds lovely.”

“Yeah?” His heart had no business imitating a balloon, it really didn’t.

“Yes. Not tonight, but tomorrow perhaps?”

“Sure. Gives me time to look up recipes that won’t upset the kid and cut short the evening.”

A tiny furrow appeared on her brow. “You needn’t go to any extra bother.”

“It’s no bother, really,” he said, moving toward the stairs. “I like cooking and I like puzzles. This’ll be a bit of both. You heading up?”

“Oh, don’t wait for me. I can’t climb stairs very fast at the moment, I’m afraid.”

Daniel put on his clowning face. “Yeah? Neither can I. Maybe we could have a reverse race. See which one of us is slower.”

She laughed, as he’d hoped she would. She made a great show of fiddling with something on her watch, eyes twinkling merrily.

“If that’s the way you want to play it, fine. I’ll time you up to the first turn, then I’ll hand my watch over and you can time me up the second one.”

Now Daniel was the one laughing. “No slowing down on purpose.”

“I would never!”

Grinning widely, Daniel gamely took his place at the foot of the stairs, right hand on the banister, left hand firmly gripping the handle of his crutch, his mail tucked into the inner pocket of his winter coat. He looked back, challenging her with a raised eyebrow. Her mouth twitched with repressed laughter.

“On your mark,” she said, thumb poised over her watch, “and go!”

Daniel huffed in good natured annoyance, setting off up the stairs. “You missed part of it,” he griped.

“Cultural differences.”

“Hogwash. I did spend some time in England during the war, you know. You can’t pull that with me and expect me to believe it.”

“Damn. And here I thought I could tell you any pretty lie I wanted.”

Daniel reached the first turn and looked back at her. Her grin was wide enough to put movie stars to shame.

“You’re trouble, is what you are, Mrs. Carter. Trouble with a capital T.”

Her smile dimmed slightly.

“Peggy. Please. I hate being called Mrs. Carter.”

It was all Daniel could do not to let the swirling giddiness in his stomach show itself on his face.

“All right. Daniel, then.”

Her smile brightened again. Daniel’s heart did a cartwheel in his chest.

Peggy followed him up the stairs, enormous belly leading the way. When she got to the turn, she handed her watch over to Daniel and showed him how to set the timer. It was a fancy watch for someone living in their apartment building. She must have kept it from before the war. He got the sense from her stories that her family back in England was fairly well off even at the height of the Depression. Their class differences were yet another reason she’d likely never see him as a romantic option, no matter what her situation was now.

He brushed aside the thought to concentrate on their game.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Get set.”

He paused for a purposefully long moment.

“Daniel.”

He grinned at her and she rolled her eyes at him, smiling ruefully as though she couldn’t believe she was enjoying herself.

“Go!”

Peggy set about waddling up the stairs as Daniel did his best to swallow his heart back down where it belonged.

She was off limits. He just had to remind himself of that. As many times as it took.

 

~***~

 

The problem was, the more time Daniel spent with Peggy, the deeper he fell in love with her. She was funny, smart, passionate, and curious about the world around her. He had no doubt she would be an excellent mother when the time came, if only because he had no doubt she would impart those same qualities to her child.

If she weren’t so recently widowed, she was exactly the sort of woman he’d always dreamed of marrying himself.

As it was, Daniel did his best to quash his crush on her with a ruthlessness he hadn’t even shown fighting for his life in the Ardennes. His daydreams about marrying her were starting to distract him at the office, and he was terrified of slipping up at home by letting her know how he felt. Now wasn’t the time for that. It might never be the time for that.

He had plenty of opportunities to practice his self denial. They’d gotten into the habit of having dinner together most nights of the week at one apartment or the other, both relieved to have some company for the event after months of mostly eating alone. They agreed between them that Daniel was the better cook, but Peggy was nothing if not determined to repay him for every meal he made her with one of her own. Daniel now counted her as a friend, and hoped she’d say the same about him.

When Peggy finally went into labor four days after Christmas, she and Daniel were about to have dinner together in her apartment. He’d realized soon after walking in her door that something was bothering her, but it wasn’t his place to pry, not after she’d made her feelings about being fawned over for the baby she was carrying clear. Instead, he took over finishing the cooking — a hearty potato soup made with leftover Christmas ham and plenty of fresh cream — while she paced and rubbed her back.

“You sure you don’t want to sit down?” he asked, knowing her answer before he even asked the question.

“I assure you, I’m quite well.” The pallor of her face suggested she was anything but. “Why? Am I making you nervous?”

“Well, you are giving me a complex. I can’t compete with you in that pacing contest you’re having with yourself.”

She snorted, then gasped and closed her eyes, breathing very carefully from her mouth. Daniel had some experience with pain, and knew whatever she was feeling right now couldn’t be good.

“Peggy–”

“Daniel. I need you to call for a doctor,” Peggy said, her eyes still squeezed shut. “Now.”

Daniel nearly fell in his scramble for his crutch. He banged out into the hallway and went as fast as he could toward the stairs and the building phone located in the entry hall. Mrs. Keller intercepted him on the landing, her arms weighed down with groceries.

“Mr. Sousa! What’s the matter?”

“Peggy– Mrs. Carter. She’s gone into labor.”

Mrs. Keller’s eyes widened, then sparkled with excitement. An air of steady resolve came over her and she unloaded one of her shopping bags into Daniel’s arms. He juggled it and his crutch, wobbling where he stood before catching his balance again.

“Be a dear and take these up to my apartment, will you? I’ll handle Mrs. Carter.”

“She said to call a doctor.”

Mrs. Keller handed off the last of her bags to him. “Nonsense. I know perfectly well what I’m doing. Take those up to Thomas; he can deal with them for once.”

Daniel opened his mouth to object again, but Mrs. Keller had already disappeared behind Peggy’s door.

Well, at least she didn’t think him incompetent of doing that much.

Not knowing what else to do, Daniel delivered the Kellers’ groceries to their third floor apartment. It was a test of all his physical therapy training to ascend the stairs loaded down as he was without falling or losing his balance. Slowly, he managed. He didn’t even drop anything.

Daniel relayed the news to Mr. Keller, who took it with a put upon sigh, then he descended the stairs again to hover outside Peggy’s apartment door. He knocked firmly twice before opening it and letting himself in. Mrs. Keller was bustling about with yesterday’s newspaper.

They blinked at each other.

“I just wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help,” Daniel said, feeling stupid and conspicuous.

“Thank you, but you can go home, Mr. Sousa. This is ladies’ work.”

“Right.”

She nodded at him and disappeared behind the bedroom door. Before it closed, Daniel got a glimpse of Peggy bent over in pain, one arm braced on the foot of her bed, the other pressing at the small of her back.

Daniel felt miserable. Peggy was alone in there with no one to support her but a nosey neighbor she wasn’t close to at all. She should at least have her mother, or someone she was actually close to with her at a time like this. But then, Daniel wasn’t sure if she even had any close female friends in the city. At least Mrs. Keller knew what she was doing. Daniel knew he should listen to her, knew there was nothing he could really do to help. He should go home, like she’d told him, and wait for the results of the night like everybody else.

Instead, he went to the stove to boil some water.

Daniel had no idea what the hot water was for, but he remembered being sent to get some when his oldest sister, Ruth, was giving birth to her first kid. Though, it occurred to him that maybe he’d been sent on the errand to keep him out from underfoot. In which case, maybe he shouldn’t be boiling water now.

He shrugged. If nothing else, maybe Peggy might want a cup of tea to soothe her nerves. It was one of the more British things he knew she did from time to time.

While the water boiled, Daniel sat down to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Mrs. Keller collected the hot water from him, so he’d at least been right to boil it, but then there was nothing else for him to do but stew in his thoughts and worries about Peggy. Would she be all right with only Mrs. Keller in there to help her? What if something went wrong? What if they couldn’t get to the hospital in time? Should he call for a doctor anyway?

Mrs. Keller tried to shoo him away a few times, each time more insistent that she had things under control and he could go home. He made her a bowl of soup and ate the one he made for Peggy when Mrs. Keller insisted this was no time for Peggy to be eating such a thing. It settled like lead in his stomach, and did nothing to calm him down.

At one point, Mr. Keller came in and sat with him, trying to convince him to go out for the night to the bar down the street, or at least to go home, but that didn’t feel like the right thing to do. He couldn’t just leave when Peggy was going through one of the toughest nights of her life, could he? What if she needed something?

He finally left sometime around midnight, after the third time he nearly clocked himself on the table nodding off from lack of sleep. He’d been getting up before dawn the past couple of weeks to clock in at work early and make up for missing his usual night shifts. Dooley hadn’t said anything, but he knew the change in his routine had been noted.

As though she’d been waiting for him to leave, the minute Daniel crawled into his own bed was the same minute Peggy began screaming.

 

~***~

 

At three in the morning on December 30, 1945, Daniel was jolted out of a fitful sleep by the sound of a baby crying.

Half-dazed with exhaustion, Daniel clumsily donned his prosthetic and got dressed well enough to be seen by his neighbors, if maybe not well enough to be seen by the broader public. Then he quietly crutched down the hall to Peggy’s apartment.

After a polite knock, he let himself in. Everything was as he’d left it a few hours ago, yet somehow the air was changed. The baby wasn’t crying anymore, but he almost felt he could sense its presence. A quiet murmur of voices came through the bedroom door.

Daniel considered his options, then moved for the kettle again. He had a sense that now was a time Peggy would definitely want tea. He’d make it weak, so she could sleep, but put plenty of cream and sugar in it to give her back some of her strength. He could only imagine what kind of effort it took to give birth to a baby.

When it was ready, Daniel knocked on the bedroom door. Mrs. Keller opened it with an exasperated expression on her face that rapidly morphed into one of confusion as she took in his change of clothes.

“I thought Peggy might like some tea,” he said, voice low.

“Tea sounds absolutely divine,” Peggy’s voice called quietly. Mrs. Keller sighed, but moved aside to let him in, so Daniel carefully crutched over to Peggy’s bedside to hand her the cup.

“I added cream and probably more sugar than you like. Figured you could use the pick-me-up after all that.”

“That sounds perfect,” Peggy said sipping at it. Her nose wrinkled a bit at the taste — definitely too much sugar — but she finished it in no time.

She looked exhausted and completely wrung-out, but somehow still lovelier than any other woman Daniel had ever laid eyes on. He was so gone for her it was pathetic.

Peggy eyed him as she handed back the teacup. “Did you go home at all?” she asked.

“For a couple hours. Then I heard the baby crying.”

“That eager to meet her are you?”

Daniel felt a smile take over his face without his full permission.

“Her?”

“Her,” Peggy said, adjusting the lay of the towel the baby was bundled into. “Sarah.”

“Oh! Sarah. What a nice, old-fashioned name,” Mrs. Keller said, quickly folding some linens by the foot of the bed to try concealing the fresh stains of blood and something else on them. Daniel looked away, embarrassed.

“It was Steve’s mother’s name,” Peggy said quietly. “I like to think he would have approved.”

Mrs. Keller patted her foot. “I’m sure he would have, dear. You rest up now. Remember what I told you. You need anything at all come knock me up.”

Peggy wore an expression that suggested she would do no such thing, but Daniel made note of the offer on her behalf. Peggy was gonna need all the help she could get in the coming months, so there was no sense refusing it when it was offered.

Mrs. Keller shot Daniel an odd look before she left, the door clicking shut behind her, but before he had a chance to figure out what it meant, Peggy was speaking again.

“He never even knew I was pregnant.”

“What?”

“Steve. He didn’t know. I didn’t even know, when he . . . .”

Daniel crutched over and took a seat on the dining table chair set next to her bed. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. It’s okay, Peggy.”

“She has his hair,” she said, petting it with a finger.

What hair Sarah had was practically nonexistent it was so invisible, but the light caught on a few wisps of a dark, burnished gold. Peggy’s Steve clearly couldn’t have been more different from Daniel if he’d tried.

“Judging from the crying I heard earlier, she’ll have your stubbornness,” Daniel said, trying to lighten the mood.

Peggy chuckled. “Oh, she’ll definitely have that. Steve was as bad as I am when it came to knowing when to stop. Possibly worse.”

“So you’re saying she’ll be a hellion of a teenager?”

“Oh god,” Peggy said, wincing. “She’s barely even an hour old yet. She’s not allowed to be a teenager.”

“Not for a few years, at least.”

“No.”

Daniel took a closer look at Sarah. She had the same squashed red face all newborns seemed to have, but there was evidence of very full lips and long eyelashes too. She’d likely be at least as stunning as her mom when she grew up.

“Sarah Carter,” Daniel mused.

“Sarah Elizabeth,” Peggy corrected. “It’s tradition in my family to give the oldest girl the middle name of Elizabeth. My mum may barely be speaking to me, but she insisted on that.”

Daniel didn’t ask why Peggy’s mother wasn’t talking to her. It probably had something to do with Peggy choosing to live in the States. Or possibly choosing to marry an American instead of a nice British officer. She’d told him about her brief engagement to Fred Wells early in the war. Daniel didn’t dare allow himself to be grateful for her change of heart.

“Sarah Elizabeth Carter,” Daniel said. “It suits her.”

Peggy smiled down at her, something soft and protective and loving in her gaze. Daniel didn’t say it, but he thought motherhood suited her as much as the name suited her daughter.

“Daniel?”

“Hmm?”

“How am I supposed to do this? The only way I know how to be a mum is to follow my own mother’s example, and I’m no Hampstead housewife.” The soft look was gone now, replaced by something overwhelmed and edged with terror.

“You do it the same way you handle everything else: take things one day at a time and ask for help when you need it.”

Peggy shot him a wry look. “I’ve never been the best at asking for help.”

“No. Really?” Daniel said, thinking back to all the times he’d come over to her apartment for dinner only to have to rescue some burning something she insisted was fine. She glared at him. “Come on, you’ll be fine. You’ll figure it out. And I’m right next door if you ever need a breather.”

“I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not; I’m offering. Besides, that’s what friends do, they help each other.”

“Is that what we are?”

Daniel affected an extremely offended expression, all the while hoping like hell his true feelings for her weren’t written all over his face. “I sure hope so. I haven’t been cooking all these dinners for the bums down the street.”

Peggy laughed, her eyes full of some deeply felt emotion. She reached over and gripped his arm for a moment before pulling away to more completely hold Sarah again.

“You might regret that,” she said. “Now you’ve offered I might just take shameless advantage of you.”

Daniel didn’t say he hoped she would, in more ways than one. He didn’t flirt or banter or tease her about how she couldn’t chase him off that easily. He merely said, “Good to know,” and left it at that.

 

~***~

 

Sarah was crying when Daniel got home from work the next day, hours after his usual dinner time. She was crying as he got ready for bed, and as he tried to read the novel he’d picked up at the library the week before. There were moments he thought she stopped, thought Peggy finally managed to calm her down, but then the crying picked up again, thready and tremulous through the apartment walls.

Daniel didn’t think he’d ever heard anything more pathetic.

He debated with himself for a good fifteen minutes as Sarah’s cries carried on and on and on, then finally he cursed himself for a coward and sat up to redon his leg. He tied his robe securely around his waist, slipped on his slippers, and grabbed his crutch before leaving his apartment, possibly for the rest of the night if that was what it took.

Daniel knocked at Peggy’s door, hoping he wasn’t giving Peggy something else to worry about. She opened it looking frazzled and tired and about two minutes away from angry tears herself.

“I’m sorry, Daniel. I’ve been trying to stop her crying.”

“Babies cry. Can I come in?”

Peggy hesitated for a moment, but stepped aside and let him through, closing the door behind him.

“Is everything okay?” Daniel asked.

“I can’t get her to eat anything,” Peggy said, her voice cracking in the middle of the sentence. Her chin wobbled as she blinked away tears.

“At all, or….”

“I try to feed her,” she waved vaguely in the air in front of her, “but she won’t latch on and I haven’t any of that formula stuff they sell in the shops. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but clearly I must be doing something wrong or she’d eat, and–” her breathing hitched. “And. And I can’t do this. I’m not a mother. I don’t know–”

“Peggy! Peggy! Calm down,” Daniel said, gripping her shoulders in an attempt to anchor her in the present and snap her out of whatever hysteria she was working herself into. “When was the last time you ate anything?”

“What does that matter if she won’t eat?”

“You’ve gotta take care of yourself or you won’t be able to take care of her.”

“The problem isn’t that I haven’t any milk, it’s that I can’t get her to drink it!”

Just then, Sarah gave another pitiful cry and the front of Peggy’s dressing gown was suddenly stained with milk. They both flushed red as Peggy quickly tried to hide herself from his view. He turned his back to give her more privacy. After a couple of awkward, shuffling moments, he crutched into the living room where Sarah was lying bundled up on the couch cushions where Peggy must have set her down to answer the door. She hardly weighed anything as he carefully knelt down to pick her up in his arms.

“Have you asked Mrs. Keller for help?” he asked, rocking back and forth slightly in an attempt soothe Sarah’s tremulous tears.

“Why on earth would I ask her for help at this hour?” Peggy asked, exasperated.

Daniel shrugged. “Maybe she stayed up to celebrate the new year. And even if she didn’t, she had something like eight kids; she knows the hours babies keep. ”

“It’s New Year’s Eve?” Peggy asked, appalled.

Daniel’s heart went out to her. He got the sense that any other year she’d have done something to celebrate, but instead she was wrung out and exhausted from caring for a brand new baby who seemingly had no interest in making things easy for her.

He smiled at her over his shoulder, trying to infuse it with all the sympathy he felt for her situation. “Technically it’s the new year already. Clock struck midnight shortly before I left the office.”

Peggy’s chin wobbled as she looked away from him again, her frustration clearly reaching a breaking point. Daniel turned his attention back to Sarah, who was now whimpering in his arms. He slowly maneuvered himself up to standing, locking the knee of his prosthetic so he could sway with her a bit more perceptively.

“You know,” Daniel said lightly, “this isn’t such a bad way to ring in the new year. Beats the office party I left, anyway.”

Peggy snorted. “Yes, a crying baby in the middle of the night is so much better than a festive celebration.” Her voice was heavy, thick with barely restrained emotion.

“Well, when you weigh it up, crying baby vs Krzeminski drunkenly bragging about the number of women he plans to sleep with . . . gotta say I prefer the crying baby.”

Peggy laughed, a painful sounding half sob which she quickly covered up by blowing her nose.

“Besides,” Daniel continued, pretending to ignore her, “this particular crying baby is kinda nice to cuddle, aren’t you, Sunshine?”

Sarah was curled into his chest, her head pillowed just under his collarbone. She kept opening her mouth and trying to bury her face into him, and with a start Daniel realized she was trying to find food as though he could provide it just as easily as Peggy could. The poor thing must be starving.

He looked up at Peggy again to find her watching him, still half turned away to protect her modesty.

“Seriously, Peggy. Go ask Mrs. Keller for help.”

Her chin wobbled again. “I can’t. What will she think of me?”

“That you’re a new mom who hasn’t figured it all out yet. She knows you don’t have anyone around to help you out. Maybe she knows some trick to it you haven’t learned yet.”

Peggy was silent behind him save for the rustle of clothes he could just barely hear over the sound of Sarah’s whimpering.

“I thought it was all supposed to come naturally,” Peggy said eventually, her voice soft and sad. “That I’d somehow just, know what to do.”

“Yeah, well, both my older sisters went a little bit nuts after they had their first kids. Agnes was convinced my nephew was gonna just stop breathing if she wasn’t in the room with him. Checked on him every fifteen minutes for the first coupla days. And Ruth almost cooked her first daughter through over-bundling, she was so afraid she wouldn’t be warm enough. I think there’s supposed to be something of a learning curve to it.”

Daniel kept his gaze firmly rooted on Sarah’s squashed red face. She looked ready to gear up for another round of frustrated crying after finding that Daniel had nothing in the way of breasts to offer her, and he desperately tried to remember things he’d seen his dad or his sisters do to calm his nieces and nephews when they were babies.

Peggy blew her nose again. “Why do you have to be so sensible?” she asked.

“It’s a curse,” Daniel snarked kindly. “Get changed and get Mrs. Keller. Even if it wasn’t New Year’s I bet she’s been waiting up. Just in case.”

“You mean Sarah’s been keeping her up.”

“That too.”

“I can’t just leave–”

“I’ll watch Sarah until you get back,” he said, looking at her over his shoulder. “Maybe I can calm her down enough to actually eat by then. I’m sure she’s as frustrated by not eating as you are at this point. And you could use a break too, even if it’s just for a coupla minutes. Don’t try to deny it.”

“Daniel–”

“Peggy, go. I’ve got her until you get back. I won’t break her, I promise.”

She bit her lip, but retreated to the bedroom long enough to change her robe and clean up her face a little bit. She hovered by the apartment door when she was done, obviously torn, but Daniel encouraged her once more and she went.

Daniel looked down at the baby in his arms. She was such a tiny thing to be causing so much trouble.

“Let’s see if we can’t at least get some water in you, kiddo. All that crying’s gotta be bad for your throat.”

Daniel walked slowly into Peggy’s kitchen, more careful with his crutch and his leg than he had been since the first days he was learning to use them. He knew by now where Peggy kept her clean dish towels and washcloths, and pulled one out, wetting it and twisting it so water would drip from one corner. He tried dripping a little water into Sarah’s mouth. Her nose wrinkled in frustration, then her lips puckered for more as he dribbled more water into her mouth.

He smiled, pleased.

By the time Peggy returned with Mrs. Keller, who seemed shocked by his presence, Sarah was practically suckling at the washcloth, which he’d had to rewet twice. She’d also worked an arm loose from her swaddling and whacked Daniel’s chest hard enough he thought he might bruise. He didn’t remember babies being that strong.

“I got her to drink some water,” Daniel greeted them. “Maybe she’ll cooperate with you better now.”

“Thank you, Daniel,” Peggy said, her face alight with gratitude.

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Sousa,” Mrs. Keller said briskly, taking Sarah from his arms and setting her to crying again. “We can take it from here. You can go back to your own apartment now.”

There was a slight emphasis on his own apartment. Clearly she thought he had no business being here, helping Peggy as he was. She probably suspected his motives. But they were next door neighbors. No matter his feelings for her, Daniel considered Peggy a friend and wanted to help her out. What was so wrong with that? It wasn’t like he was expecting her to fall into his arms in gratitude. Real life rarely worked like that, no matter what the movies said to the contrary. Though if Peggy ever did decide she wanted him, he definitely wouldn’t turn her away. He was only human.

Peggy took Sarah from Mrs. Keller with an oddly suspicious look on her face, almost like she thought the woman might abscond with her baby. Daniel made a mental note of the reaction to reflect on later. He didn’t remember her acting that way with him.

“Okay. Well. Good luck,” he said awkwardly, and left, his crutch clicking loudly in the hallway back to his apartment. For all that he’d left things in such an unsettled state, Daniel couldn’t help a small part of him thinking he was leaving home behind him.

 

~***~

 

Sarah was the most ridiculously adorable terror Daniel had ever had the pleasure to meet.

When she wasn’t eating or sleeping, she demanded cuddles. Sometimes she demanded cuddles even when she was sleeping. One of his shirts had a rip on the collar from when he’d tried to set her down once without her permission. Where a newborn baby got that kind of strength from, Daniel had no idea, but he teased Peggy about it every time they sat down to a meal together. Both of them were getting quite skilled at eating one handed depending on who Sarah had decided she wanted cuddles from that night. To Daniel’s astonished pleasure, it was often him. Peggy, amused twinkle in her eye, joked about hiring him as her nanny when she went back to work instead of the friend of a friend from the war she’d actually settled on.

If Daniel didn’t believe so ardently in the mission of the SSR, if he didn’t feel so grateful to be hired there as an agent despite his disability, he might have taken her up on it.

Sarah was perfect. Daniel didn’t think that opinion was colored as much by his affection for her and her mother as much as it was absolute, undeniable fact. The Gerber baby had nothing on her. His own nieces and nephews had nothing on her, not that he’d ever admit as much out loud where his family could hear it. She had the widest brown eyes he’d ever seen, already shining with curiosity about the world around her after only a few weeks out in it. And she had the most delightfully expressive mouth, with full lips that could pout or pucker or gasp like she was on stage or in one of those old silent movies from his youth. He never knew babies could be so interesting to watch and to look at.

When Peggy teased him about being her nanny, Daniel carefully shied away from wondering where Peggy got the money to hire a nanny when she was living in an old tenement building like theirs. Though maybe that was how. Maybe Peggy purposely chose to live in this building because the lower rent meant she could spend the money she’d obviously saved from before the war on other things. Like a nanny.

It was obvious that Peggy would have to work. With no husband to provide for her and no family to fall back on, Peggy’s only option was to find something to support herself and Sarah on her own. Apparently, she’d found some sort of job at the phone company that she would start the next day. Daniel, somewhat selfishly, wondered what her going to work would do to their dinners. Would she come home exhausted, with no energy to cook and therefore ask to eat with him more often? Or would their dinners together taper off, their sociability a phase she no longer had time for as she met new friends, took on different responsibilities?

Daniel hoped for the former while trying to prepare himself for the possibility of the latter. He wasn’t doing a great job at it though, because every time he thought Peggy wouldn’t want to spend time with him anymore, his heart ached. Every time he thought he wouldn’t get to see Sarah grow up, his vision dimmed to black and white and shades of grey. Not having them in his life anymore, now that he’d met them, was unthinkable.

But whether they stayed in his life or not wasn’t fully up to him, so he did his best to cherish the time they were spending together now. Besides, even if Peggy and Sarah became a permanent part of his life, he’d want to remember moments like this.

“Let go of Mummy’s hair, Poppet,” Peggy ground out, her head leaning at an awkward angle and her face contorted with pain. Daniel reached over to try to help her untangle Sarah’s fist from her hair, but Sarah clung tight. Not knowing what else to do, Daniel leaned over and blew a raspberry on the back of Sarah’s neck. She startled enough that they were able to unclench her fist, and Daniel took her from Peggy’s arms completely to give Peggy a chance to recover. Sarah looked up at him from the crook of his arm with an affronted expression that would have better suited the old biddies at his church.

Daniel stuck out his tongue at her.

She looked even more offended at this new insult.

Daniel fought back a snicker and instead focused on crossing his eyes without giving himself a headache. Sarah let out a squeal and whacked him on the chest.

“Ow!” Daniel uncrossed his eyes to make an exaggerated pout at her.

“Sorry,” Peggy said, massaging her scalp. “I’ve tried swaddling her I don’t even know how many different ways to stop her arms flailing like that, but she always manages to wriggle out of it.”

“It’s fine, I’m getting used to her beating me up. Though where she got this level of fight from . . . .”

“Oh stop,” Peggy said, rolling her eyes.

“I’m just sayin’, it’s less ‘stiff upper lip’ and more Brooklyn brawler.”

“Well, she was born here.”

“Yeah, she was,” Daniel said softly, smiling down at Sarah.

Sarah blinked at him and burbled, allowing a small trail of drool to leak from her lips. Daniel wiped it away with his napkin without thinking about it, which somehow led to Sarah reaching for the cloth, batting at it like a cat. He played along, trailing the edge of it close to her face and then taking it away again before she could fully grasp on to it. She squealed angrily and wiggled. The next time he brought it close to her face, he let her grab it. She wound up tugging it out of his hand completely and waving it around like a flag.

“You’re good with her,” Peggy said.

Daniel blinked. Somehow, he’d managed to forget she was in the room with them.

“I’ve had practice.”

“Even so. Not all men are as comfortable around babies as you are. I doubt her father would have been. Not at first, anyway. I once saw him hold a baby like it was a bomb about to go off.”

Daniel looked up at her to share in the joke, but immediately looked down at Sarah again when he caught the glassy shine in Peggy’s eyes.

Peggy had every right to cry over her dead husband. It didn’t matter that she was speaking of him with fond exasperation. She could miss him and be annoyed at his faults at the same time. Grief worked like that sometimes. That didn’t mean Daniel had the slightest clue how to comfort her, though. He always felt useless around crying women, wanting to fix things that often couldn’t be fixed in an attempt to make them stop crying altogether. Usually, he just made it worse.

Still, he hated seeing Peggy cry.

Feigning nonchalance, Daniel shrugged. “Nobody’s good with babies right away if they haven’t been around them before. And to give your husband credit, sometimes babies do go off like bombs. All over whatever they were wearing. And you, if you’re not careful.”

Peggy sputtered into laughter. “Oh! Don’t remind me! She did that to me yesterday. Right after her bath too.”

Daniel cringed in sympathy, laughing along with her as she carefully wiped the tears from her eyes. Sarah squealed as though cheering her own disgusting timing.

“Sorry. I guess it’s a good thing we were already finished with dinner,” he said ruefully. Sarah was now gnawing on her stolen napkin. “Not that this one seems to have gotten the message.” He tried tugging at the napkin, but she just grunted at him and held on tight. “You’re insatiable, Miss, a ravenous black hole. Don’t think I don’t know your mum’s been feeding you twice what other babies eat. I’m on to your tricks.”

Sarah squealed and almost chomped down on his finger when he got it too close.

“Well, that’s just rude.”

Sarah wiggled and stuffed more of the napkin in her mouth. Daniel looked up to find Peggy smiling at him.

“Thank you again for cooking all this week,” she said. “It’s been wonderful knowing I’ve one less thing to worry about.”

“I’d’ve done the cooking all month if I could have convinced you earlier.”

“You did try.”

“Yes, I did. One of these days I might even convince you to ask for help when you need it instead of having to be talked into receiving it all the time.”

“Well, there’s no need for that sort of slander.”

They grinned at each other until Peggy’s eyes slid over to the clock hanging on Daniel’s wall.

“You need to get home soon?” he asked.

“I do. I have to be up frightfully early in order to get this one across town before I go in to work.” Her face twisted ruefully. “Not that Sarah lets me sleep in anymore anyway.”

“Your nanny can’t come here?”

“I prefer to go to her. Ana has a garden for when Sarah’s old enough to care about that sort of thing. Also, her husband would be crushed if he missed an opportunity to dote on them both throughout the day. He was more excited than you at the prospect of having a baby girl around to spoil rotten.”

Daniel’s eyebrows shot up, even as he ignored her comment about him. “They have a house?”

Peggy’s smile turned odd. “Of a sort.”

They must be an older couple if the husband had the leisure time to stick around the house during the day. And fairly well off if they had a house in the city with a garden attached, even if it was out in one of the other boroughs. He did his best not to let his envy of them get the better of him.

“Must be nice. It’s lucky your friend found them for you.”

“I am fortunate in the friends I have,” Peggy said, smiling at him warmly.

Daniel smiled back for a moment before looking down at Sarah. If he wasn’t careful he knew he’d start staring at Peggy as though she was the answer to every question he didn’t even know he wanted to ask, and she didn’t need that from him.

“Well, I should let you two get home,” he said, trying again to pry the napkin out of Sarah’s grip. She released it, then immediately seemed to regret it without knowing how to get it back. “Try to get what sleep she’ll let you have.”

Peggy snorted as she stood, but didn’t say anything. Instead, she gathered their dishes and scraped the few bits of food left on them into the trash. Then she rinsed them off and set them in the sink. Daniel carefully rose to standing with Sarah now gnawing at his shoulder and shooed Peggy away from doing anything more.

“Thank you again for dinner,” Peggy said, moving toward the door.

“It’s no problem. Really.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate it.”

Daniel smiled at her, but held his tongue. He looked back down at the baby in his arms. “Goodnight, Sunshine,” he said, leaning down to kiss Sarah’s plump cheek as he handed her back over to Peggy. “Night, Peg.” And without thinking, he leaned over and kissed Peggy’s cheek as well.

Daniel’s eyes opened wide in horror as his face flamed red. An inappropriate and stupid part of his brain noted as he pulled away and took a step back from her that Peggy looked even more attractive when she blushed.

“Oh god,” he choked out. “I wasn’t thinking. My dad used to do that all the– I am so sorry!”

“That. That’s quite all right,” Peggy said, then cleared her throat, not looking at him.

“It’s not. You don’t want that from anybody right now, I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to- I’m sorry.”

Peggy opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again without saying anything. She flashed him a tight smile and a whispered, “Good night, Daniel,” and disappeared out into the hall.

The door closed behind her with a quiet, but final-sounding click. Daniel banged his head on it and hoped with everything in him he hadn’t just ruined their friendship forever.

 

~***~

 

When Daniel got in to the office the next day, the other agents were beside themselves with news that they would have a new coworker soon. And not just any coworker: a female agent.

“I heard it’s the dame who was the inspiration for Betty Carver on that ‘Captain America Radio Hour,’” Yauch said.

“Oh, Cap! Save me!” Krzeminski twittered to the delight of the other agents.

“She just better not expect any of us to go running after her to save her ass over here,” Thompson said, drawing nods and muttered agreements.

Daniel wanted to punch all of them.

“Did none of you work with any female agents during the war?” Daniel asked, exasperated. “She’s not gonna be some wilting flower, whoever she is.”

“Already planning how to woo her into the filing room, Sousa?” Krzeminski asked. “You haven’t even met her yet.” Another round of laughter went up around them.

Daniel sighed, but was saved from answering by the arrival of Dooley, standing over by the elevators to introduce the new agent. Everyone shuffled into a semblance of order, the jovial men transformed into alert agents in an instant as everyone tried to get a first look at their new coworker.

Standing next to Chief Dooley was Peggy Carter.

Daniel’s jaw dropped even as he looked behind her for the new agent. There was no one else there.

Daniel blinked at her as an ocean of doubt and confusion rained down around him, roaring past his ears and carrying his gut with it as it went.

Peggy was an SSR agent.

His Peggy.

No, not his Peggy, but the Peggy he’d been living next to for the last four months, the Peggy he’d cooked more dinners for than he could remember, the Peggy he was hopelessly in love with.

Across the room, Peggy caught sight of Daniel and visibly paled.

She was his new coworker, the SSR agent well-known for liasing with Captain America.

Whose name was Steve Rogers.

Steve.

Suddenly, so many things Daniel hadn’t even thought to pay attention to made sense. Sarah had such unusual strength for a baby because her dad was superhuman himself. It also explained why Peggy was so fiercely protective of her, even beyond what was normal of new mothers. And Peggy hated being called Mrs. Carter not because her married name gave her pain, but because it wasn’t her married name at all. She might not have ever had the chance to marry Rogers given his untimely death.

Daniel blinked again and turned his attention back to the room around him. The other agents were doing a poor job of ignoring Peggy as she settled in at her desk by the window. She already had a stack of paperwork to process, mostly gruntwork the secretaries hadn’t gotten to yet, Daniel knew. He had had his own, similar stack waiting for him his first month with the SSR. He let her get on with it, all the while wondering if he’d have to wait until they both got off work to confront her with his new knowledge about her situation.

He shouldn’t have worried. It didn’t even take half an hour for Peggy to lure him into the file room as unobtrusively as possible.

“You can’t tell anyone about Sarah,” Peggy said as soon as they were both certain the room was empty. Her eyes were wide and worried. “Daniel, please, you can’t.”

“I won’t.”

“Daniel.”

“I won’t.”

“They can’t know. I could lose my job, they could try to take her from me–”

Daniel gripped her gently by the arm. “Peggy, I’m not gonna tell anyone.”

“You didn’t know I was coming to work here?”

Daniel blinked. Did she suspect him of being a plant? Of spying on her?

“No! Peggy, no.”

Peggy sighed and looked away, but some of the tension in her shoulders released as she did.

“I’m sorry, Daniel. It’s just, the situation with Sarah is. Delicate. To say the least.”

“I’m starting to get that.”

“If people knew who her father was . . . .”

“Peggy, I won’t tell anyone. I’d die before I let anything happen to her.”

Peggy blinked at him, her mouth falling open. Daniel stood his ground. Sarah was . . . Sarah was more precious than anything, and it had nothing to do with who her father was, or even who her mother was. It was completely down to her.

“Look,” he said, as Peggy continued to gape at him. “Just– whatever you’re thinking? Don’t. I won’t use this against you, I won’t push you to tell me anything that’s none of my business anyway. Though I do think we should talk later.”

“You just said you wouldn’t push me to–”

“I meant we should talk about boundaries. Between work and home. I’ve been trying to keep them mostly separate, but–”

“That sounds perfect. One should have nothing to do with the other.”

Daniel’s heart sank as all his worst fears about Peggy came true at once.

This was it, then, the end of their friendship. The end of whatever might have been between them. The end of his getting to be a part of Sarah’s life, a part of Peggy’s. He knew kissing her cheek last night bothered her more than she’d admitted. She’d practically run away from him after. Their working together now was just the last nail in the coffin where the two of them were concerned.

“Right,” he said, his voice sounding dull to his own ears.

“Right.”

How the hell was he going to manage to be just her colleague when he’d come to think of her as so much more? The loss of her friendship roiled in his gut, made everything feel heavy and grey.

Daniel nodded, unable to look at Peggy’s face, and he moved to turn away, to limp back out to the bullpen and try to pretend he’d never met her, didn’t feel anything for her, didn’t ache at the thought of an endless string of lonely nights again. He couldn’t give up this job, not even for her, so if she wanted things separate he’d have to do his damndest to keep them that way. At least working the night shift provided plenty of opportunity to get paperwork done. He wondered, dully, how long it would take him to get used to working them again.

“And you won’t tell anyone about Sarah?”

The repetition of the question was like a dagger to the heart. Any trust she’d once had in him was clearly completely gone now.

“No,” he said quietly. “I won’t tell anyone about her. You don’t have to worry about me. As far as the rest of the office is concerned, we’ve never even met before today.”

“Right,” Peggy said, her voice subdued. He felt her hand catch on the sleeve of his jacket. “Daniel, is everything all right?”

He sighed. “Look, you wanna pretend we’re strangers, I can do that, but you’ve gotta give a me a little time to get used to the idea first, okay? I can’t just go from thinking of you as one of my best friends to nobody I’m supposed to care about in an instant.”

“Nobody– Daniel, what are you saying?”

Reluctantly, he turned back to face her. She looked pale and worried and beautiful. His heart gave an aching thud in his chest.

“You don’t trust me anymore. I get that. I deserve it even. But you don’t have to worry about me pressuring you for anything you don’t want to give. Friendship or otherwise.”

“No! Daniel, no! I value our friendship.” His face must have betrayed his doubts, because she immediately followed it up with, “I do! Of course I trust you. What on earth is going on in that head of yours?”

Daniel sighed again, running a hand through his hair.

“I didn’t mean to kiss you last night,” he ground out.

Peggy gaped at him. “This is about you kissing me? Oh, for god’s sake, Daniel! I don’t care about that. You said you didn’t do it on purpose and I believe you. What more is there to say about it than that?”

Daniel’s stomach twisted in knots. He should tell her. He knew he should tell her he was in love with her, but if he did this really would be the end of things.

“Peggy–”

Just then, Agent Thompson burst into the room. He looked between the two of them with a familiar glint in his eye. Daniel took a deep breath to steady himself. He hoped Thompson wasn’t about to be as big of an asshole as he was capable of being.

“Am I interrupting something?”

“Just showing Agent Carter our filing system,” Daniel said blandly.

Thompson’s mouth twitched and Daniel suddenly remembered Krzeminski’s bad idea of a joke from earlier. He clenched his jaw so he wouldn’t sigh in annoyance.

“Yes, Agent Sousa’s being most helpful,” Peggy chimed in.

Thompson’s mouth twitched again.

“I’ll just bet he is,” Thompson drawled. He made a motion with a stack of files Daniel was sure were just a prop to give him an excuse to interrupt them. “Well, I was gonna file these away, but since you two ladies are already in here, I’ll just leave these for you to deal with.” He shoved the files at Peggy, who took them with the most unimpressed face Daniel had ever seen her wear.

“Are you certain you don’t need different assistance?” Peggy asked. “If you have that much difficulty with the alphabet, perhaps I could teach you. We could begin with words starting with ‘A’.”

It was the perfect comeback, and Daniel loved her all the more for it. His heart lurched uncomfortably, as though to make up for the way he smothered his laughter.

Thompson’s twitching mouth bloomed into a full smirk. “Better watch out, Sousa. This one’s sassy! I’ll catch you two kids later. Adios. Auf wiedersehen. Aloha!”

Daniel finally sighed as the door closed behind Thompson’s back.

“He’s charming,” Peggy said flatly, staring after him.

“Yeah, well, you gotta make allowances for the guy,” Daniel said. “He got his personality shot off in Iwo Jima.”

He stayed just long enough to see Peggy’s face light up in humor, then followed Thompson out the door. Any further discussion between them would simply have to wait for later, if Peggy decided she still wanted it. Daniel found himself uncertain which result to hope for.

 

~***~

 

Daniel caught Peggy watching him throughout the rest of the day, but they didn’t get a chance to speak again, and Daniel felt guiltily relieved. She left at 4, which made some of the other agents grumble, but Daniel knew it was so she could travel across town to pick Sarah up from her babysitter. He wondered at her resilience that she lasted that long without seeing Sarah, without holding her in her arms. Today, he knew, was the longest they’d ever been apart.

He stayed at work an hour later than he had intended that morning, taking the time to fix someone else’s filing mistake that could have easily waited for morning. He was reluctant to go home, reluctant to discover how much his life would change now that Peggy knew where he worked. He didn’t dare hope it would bring them closer.

Eventually, it couldn’t be put off any longer, and Daniel went home. He collected his mail, struggled up the stairs, and unlocked his apartment door. All the while, his stomach twisted on itself, churning endlessly. As he stepped inside, his crutch nearly slipped on a note that had been shoved under his door.

There was only one person he knew who would slip a note under his door rather than calling him at work or writing him a letter.

He knelt down to pick it up, then took a bracing breath as he unfolded it. In Peggy’s brisk scrawl, it said:

_I’ve Sarah and an amazing-smelling pot roast at mine. Come over for dinner._

His breath punched out of him.

She was inviting him to dinner, like it was any other night. She still wanted to be his friend. Daniel thought he could cry at the relief of it.

Daniel checked the time. It was only 8 o’clock; there was plenty of time to eat.

He stood up and moved to his icebox, checking to see if there was anything he could bring that would compliment a pot roast. He hoped she hadn’t been the one to make it; she hadn’t been home long enough to do the job properly, and even if she had, her previous attempts at cooking were edible at best. And that was being generous.

There was nothing suitable in the icebox, so he grabbed his half-full bottle of whisky from the counter instead and slipped the little rattle he’d made for Sarah into his pocket. He made the journey down the hall, then knocked on Peggy’s door. She’d been right about the food smelling good; the rich scent of roasted beef and root vegetables wafted out into the hall, making his mouth water.

Peggy opened the door with a smile on her face and Sarah cuddled into her shoulder. Sarah crowed a greeting into Peggy’s ear, making her flinch momentarily. Daniel’s heart gave an extra-strong thud in his chest.

“Hi,” Daniel said, hoping he didn’t sound shy. “Something smells delicious.”

Peggy’s smile widened. “You’d better come in and share it with me then.”

She stepped back, allowing Daniel to crutch his way in.


End file.
